The Phantom
by daemoninwhite
Summary: He cannot help but wish that there was more to the voice than fiction, cannot help but wish that there was someone willing to actually spend time with him … even if all the other leaves in his path is death and decay.


AN: Song used is Phantom of the Opera, lyrics are taken from the Nightwish version that appears on their album Century Child. I own neither Nightwish nor the lyrics to Phantom of the Opera. If these lyrics are different to your version, I apologise. They weren't taken from the internet, but rather fanatical listening to the version of the song that I have.

I also do not own Ryo(u) Bakura or Yami Bakura, or the whole idea behind them. I do however, own this story (or pwn it, depending on your mastery of the English language) so please, no stealing or reproducing in any form kthz.

Btw, I like long sentences.

Phantom of the Opera

In sleep he sang to me

In dreams he came

Ryou cannot remember the last time he had a decent night's sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he is somewhere else – somewhere filled with sand that sparkles like diamonds and jewels that failingly attempt to imitate it. Sometimes he is on foot, other times he is on a horse, but he is usually running. He faintly remembers a time of flames and screams, when one side of his face seemed to be covered in sticky red silk. He remembers thinking that it was thicker then silk, and oddly textured as well, and woke up to dash to the toilet, bile already filling his mouth. He knows what it was in some far off, distant way, knows what the tightness across and under that eye means, and he knows that when he dreams he will never see clearly out of that eye.

Sometimes when he wakes up the dreams linger, leaving him rubbing one eye and thinking that everything is much too dull without the constant shards of light that should be trying to pierce his eyes. He thinks that it is much too quiet too, and has taken to sleeping with his fan on as high as it will go in a vain attempt to recreate the sheer disdain of winds that could and would flay skin from bones.

The voice which calls to me

And speaks my name

Other times it's not the wind that he misses, it is the people. When he isn't running, he's either creeping around, detachedly or frantically listening to the presence of others, or he is in the midst of a crowd, and crushed under the presence of hundreds. In the dreams he loves the crush of too many bodies in a too small space, loves the heat and life that comes with it. When he wakes up he thinks that he really prefers the creeping, prefers how every sound is amplified, almost tomblike, he think in a rare flash of humour. It's not usual for him to wake up suffocating himself with his own hands, the pressure to be quiet too much to leave a noisy thing like breathing unmuffled. So he walks silently to his kitchen, and waits in the cold and silence in his own personal tomb, waiting silently for the sun to rise.

And do I dream again

For now I find

Even if he is sometimes scared, and even if he sometimes thinks that he will accidentally kill himself so he can become completely quiet, he cannot help but love the dreams. They are a big change from a reality in which he hasn't seen his father for a long, long time, and his mother and sister are dead. He wonders, in a distant, it-can't-affect-me way, if his father has died on some archaeological dig in Egypt or India or some other suitably exotic and very far away place. He thinks that it might be the effects of the dreams, but he hates to be alone. He hates this big, empty, echoing house that, at night, reminds him so much of places that he shouldn't, doesn't, couldn't have any experience with. He hates the enforced silence, he hates the cold, and he hates the way in which people don't look at him. He hates it because he wants nothing more than a small, cosy space beneath a giant desert, he hates it because he wants noise, heat and to be noticed.

The phantom of the opera is there

Inside my mind

He hopes that these feelings are because of the dreams; otherwise he cannot help but think that he has gone a little crazy. A few years ago and this would have been bliss for him. Having no one notice him means that while people, adults, teachers, old friends and strangers do not notice him, but it also means that the bullies don't either.

It means that he is invisible, and that makes him so much more powerful and insignificant then he could have ever imagined in the empty days before the dreams.

It also means that he is surprised when his father returns home. He had been absentmindedly doing some of the homework that the teacher had set for one of his many classes when he had heard the once familiar sound of tires crunching on gravel, followed by the muffled thump of a car door closing and voices filling the air as a fee was paid. He had been distantly confused, and had wandered down the stairs out of a mixture of apathy and curiosity. His father hadn't recognised him at first, his eyes had widened and he had began another name before an awkward silence had fallen between them.

"Ryou."

The sound had echoed, and he remembers tilting his head to the side, the artefact he wore around his neck had glinted, reflecting the encroaching rays of sunlight back into the face of the man that had opened the way for them.

"Ryou."

He had nodded, and had crossed the rest of the distance between them.

"We're going to Japan."

He hadn't argued, just nodded and wandered back up the stairs, apathy taking over the curiosity now that he knew what the sounds had been about. He hadn't acknowledged the soft "I missed you" that had echoed after him, or the fact that his father had almost called him by his mother's name.

Sing once again with me

Our strange duet

My power over you

Grows stronger yet

The blackouts are getting longer, and he is waking up in increasingly stranger places. He mentally put his foot down when he wakes up aboard a bloody boat. No longer, he vows in his head with all the strength of a misused and misdirected will. No longer.

But his pathetic will is not strong enough to stop what is happening to him, only strong enough for him to feel the alien, scarily familiar feeling of something else pushing him to the side and using his body. He struggles against it only to feel the other's amusement at what must feel like a moth's frantically fluttering wings. Still, his will is strong enough for him to change direction at the last minute. Although he can feel the depthless anger of the other at being denied, although it had taken all his strength to change direction and keep on that path, although he forgets it nearly as soon as he wakes up, a tiny silver of pride had blossomed somewhere in his mind.

He would not let the other hurt these people (he feels too shy to use the word 'friends' even in his head).

And though you turn from me

To glance behind

The phantom of the opera is there

Inside your mind

After Duellist Kingdom the dreams get stronger, and so does the presence of the other. He now feels it almost all the time, during school it is like a faint, warm presence that some how reminds him of the body heat of a close body without most of the heat, but during the rest of the day and at night it is much stronger, almost like a pressure less hug. The times it feels almost real, like a heavy blanket around his mind, are when he is near the small boy from the boat – the one with the crazy hair that he sometimes wonders if it is actually natural (after all, he's never seen any regrowth and he should know that hair comes in all colours).

Things between him and that boy have basically gone back to the way they were before Duellist Kingdom. He's experienced this before, usually on school camps. It happens when you're forced together with someone when you're in a small area, you feel affectionate towards him or her even though you have almost nothing in common (as far as he knows, the only interests they share is duelling). When you return to familiar territory things can go two ways, either you keep the tentative, almost friendship that you've forged between you, or everything goes back to normal. He tells himself that he's glad that they've separated, after all, if the presence was this suffocating when within 5 meters of the boy, he wonders what it would be like if they touched. He ignores the flicker of disappointment with the ease of long born practice.

Those who have seen your face

Draw back in fear

I am the mask you wear

At least he still has his dreams, but even they have changed. He no longer dreams of sands and winds, instead he dreams that he is in some place that is filled with swirling shadows and malicious intent, facing that group of people across a duel that sometimes is a spirit board. But it's not the normal Duel Monsters that they're playing, when anyone plays a card that monster, trap or spell appears. He recognises the others in various cards, Yugi is the Dark Magician, Joey is the Flame Swordsman, and he feels frustrated that he can not name the other two. Sometimes the dream stops after this, other time he can feel the evil growing stronger, smugger, as the duel between himself and Yugi continues.

It's me they hear

Usually the dream stops now, it has only continued a couple of times and he dreams this nearly ever day of the week, but when it does continue something strange happens. He knows that it isn't himself duelling Yugi, that it's just someone who looks like him, but he still feels a rush of nausea as his viewpoint rapidly changes. His body feels different and there seems to be more strain on his back. He cannot let the others be hurt, not when the presence is almost purring in satisfaction. So he changes direction, feels the pride bloom, wakes up and almost completely forgets it again.

Your spirit and my voice

In one combined

He feels the presence getting stronger but he doesn't know what to do about it. Does he tell someone and risk them thinking that he is crazy? He's found that it tends to go away if he eats less and generally takes less care of himself.

The phantom of the opera is there

Inside my/your mind

He doesn't want to die – he just doesn't want the presence in his head. He knows that he'll do almost anything to get rid of it, and when he thinks that he almost feels a flicker of fear before it is whisked away by his growing apathy. Or maybe he is just noticing it – he doesn't know. In fact, that apathy is starting to worry him. He knows that he should be worried, feel anger, fear, even hatred towards the _thing_ that's in his head and that fact that he hasn't had any friends, personality, hell a life since it came on the scene.

He's there

As he is on the brink of sleep he realises that it is almost as though the presence is jealous.

The phantom of the opera

When he remembers the flicker of a thought the next day, he laughs silently to himself. Why would anything, much less something he should only acknowledge as a fictional voice created by his mind in an attempt to create a reality in which something cares for him (at least, that is the most common explanation for his voice, according to the Internet) care about him?

And in your fantasies

You always knew

As he ponders it the next day, he is suddenly gripped by the wish that there is more to his voice then fiction.

The man of mystery

He even names it.

We're both in you

Bakura.

And in this labyrinth

Bakura.

Where night is day

Bakura.

The phantom of the opera is here

Inside your mind

Bakura…

AN: I've always thought that this song (hell, the whole story) perfectly describes the relationship between Ryou and Bakura (hooray for fanon names~!). Speaking of fanon, why is Ryou always abused in fics featuring him? In the manga and anime, sure, Bakura's a bastard but Ryou manages to stand up to him whenever it's important, and Bakura can't seem to allow relatively serious damage to come to his 'landlord'. I say relatively serious in that when one comes stabbing one's arm to the obliteration of one's soul, I'm taking the arm stabbing every day.

To violence against Ryou, Dae says no!

And finally, please review~.


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